


Summer Came Like Cinnamon

by brinnanza



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Fluff, Future Fic, Kid Fic, M/M, Post-Canon Cardassia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:37:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian, Garak, and their children on a sunny Cardassian summer day.</p>
<p>(100% pure domestic kid fic fluff)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Came Like Cinnamon

**Author's Note:**

> This fic, like all good things, started with a meme. [This meme](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/post/144315470114/the-fic-i-wont-write-game) to be exact, which I answered [here](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/post/143356954406/for-the-writing-meme-soccer-moms-and-space-dads). That lead to [this](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/post/143397230141/our-children-have-very-good-aim-based-on) which lead to [this](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/post/143406728216/jazzy-asked-about-the-cardassian-kids-from-this) and then all of a sudden I was in kid fic hell, population: me. So. This is the fic about my accidental Cardassian OC's. I've tweaked them a little since their introductory post, as you'll see in the fic, but more information about them (and more sketches of them) can be found in [ this tumblr tag](http://brinnanza.tumblr.com/tagged/accidental-cardassian-oc%27s). They're my lizard children now and I love them, so this probably won't be the last fic I write about that.
> 
> The title comes from Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On. Thanks to Ashley and Jazzy for beta reading and being excellent cheerleaders for the whole kid fic process.

“Dad.”

Julian cracks an eye open to find his eldest daughter barely ten centimeters from his face, blurry and indistinct and _entirely_ too chipper for the hour.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Pelaa says brightly. She leans back a few centimeters and comes abruptly into focus. “I want to ask you something.”

Julian groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “Pelaa. We talked about this.” He reaches behind him for the blanket Garak had stolen in the night and drags it over his shoulder, pressing his face back into the pillow.

“It’s after dawn!” she protests, gesturing to the window, where grey sunlight is feebly spilling in around the edges of the curtains. “You said not to wake you before dawn unless someone’s bleeding, and it’s after dawn.”

Technically, he guesses she’s right. She’s probably been up for an hour at least, staring out the window in her bedroom and willing the sun to come up already. “Alright, fine. Give me a minute.” Pelaa steps back from the bed, and Julian pushes himself up on one elbow, shoving a hand through his hair.

He turns around to shakes Garak awake: If Julian has to be up at this ungodly hour on his day off, his husband is damn well going to be up too. Garak just shrugs off the hand and yanks back the blanket, exhaling sharply.

Julian leans over and presses a kiss to Garak’s temple, pointedly ignoring Pelaa wrinkling her nose somewhere behind him. Cardassian propriety is all well and good, but he’ll be as effusive as he likes in his own home.

“Rise and shine, love,” he says to Garak, his voice honeyed. “Our daughter wants to ask us something.”

“Our daughter couldn’t wait until a decent hour?” Garak says, his voice coming out a little muffled against his pillow.

Julian shrugs. “We made a rule, and she followed the rule. To the letter.”

“What more can you ask, I suppose.” Garak drags himself up to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard, and smooths a hand over his hair. “Very well,” he says to Pelaa. “What is it you wanted to ask, my dear?”

Pelaa fidgets with the hem of her shirt for a moment, but then she tilts her chin up and drops her hand to her side. “I wanted to ask if we could go into town today. To the market maybe. Or the arboretum.”

“And you thought dawn was the best time to pose this query.”

“I thought we could get an early start?” She flashes a hopeful grin.

“Is your sister up yet?”

“Doubtful,” Julian answers with a snort. He shuffles up to sit beside Garak. “She was still up reading when I went to bed last night.”

“When was that?”

He’d gotten distracted by a particularly tricky base pair sequence around midnight, Julian recalls vaguely, and it had been a couple of hours after that that he’d finally crawled into bed. Garak hadn’t even stirred. “Late,” Julian says.

“You’re up,” Pelaa points out. “Maybe Teburi is too.”

Julian gives her a look. “Let her sleep, Pelaa. She needs more sleep than I do.”

“I wasn’t gonna wake her up!”

“Like you promised not to wake us?” Garak asks, raising an eye ridge at her.

“I promised not to wake you _before dawn_ ,” Pelaa says. She crosses her arms and fights down a pout.

“I suppose it’s too much to ask you to follow the _spirit_ of the law rather than the letter?” Julian is met with identical appalled expressions on either side. He sighs. “Fine. Why do you want to go into town so badly anyway?”

Pelaa straightens up, throwing her shoulders back. “In these hectic times,” she begins, sounding very much like she’s reading from a prepared speech (which she probably is), “it’s more important than ever for families to set aside time to spend together.”

Hectic times. Pelaa was only three when the bombs fell on Cardassia Prime, and Teburi and Lecar hadn’t even been born yet. Pelaa might have scattered memories of reconstruction, but none of the children remember war. Julian hopes they never have to. 

“Increased bonding time leads to stronger family ties,” Pelaa continues, her eyes fixed on a spot on the opposite wall over Julian’s head. “Cohesion in the family unit is not only good for the individual, but also leads to a strong State.”

“‘A strong State?’” Julian repeats. “Have you been reading Papa’s novels again?”

“No,” says Pelaa, scuffing her bare foot against the floor a little. “Maybe.”

Julian raises his eyebrows at Garak, who just shrugs, “I thought you wanted our children to have a well-rounded education. They are Cardassians, after all, and _The Never Ending Sacrifice_ is a seminal work.”

Julian’s going to need at least one raktajino if Pelaa and Garak are going to gang up on him. He purses his lips at Garak and then says to Pelaa, “A strong State might convince Papa, but it won’t work on me. What’s this really about?”

“I just think a family outing would be a fun way to bond?” Her hands move toward her shirt hem again, and she presses them firmly behind her back. “Family is the most important thing to Cardassians, Dad.”

“As Papa has made very clear to me,” Julian says dryly. A thought suddenly occurs. “This doesn’t have anything to do with _Tiral_ , does it?”

Pelaa flushes charcoal. “Of course not! I mean, I may have heard her say something about her family having plans this weekend, but that’s totally unrelated. Really.”

For a girl that takes after Garak in so many ways, Pelaa is really the worst liar. It’s a blessing as far as Julian is concerned, but Garak isn’t convinced. Julian had tried pointing out that if Garak taught their children how to lie, they could turn around and lie to their parents, but Garak had just tutted and said, “If you believe a child’s lies, either you are a poor parent, or the child should be commended for the skill.”

Garak clicks his tongue, and Julian steels himself for yet another ineffective lecture about dissembling techniques. Instead Garak says, “Really, my dear, Pelaa’s motivations were clear from the start.” He gives Julian a smug look.

Julian is not nearly caffeinated enough for this conversation. He throws the covers off and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “I need coffee,” he declares, and makes for the replicator in the kitchen.

Pelaa trails after him. “So is that a yes?”

Oh, to be so young and eager, experiencing the first blush of puppy love. He supposes he’ll have to settle for middle age and the hard work of marriage. _And what a hardship_ , Julian thinks, his lips quirking up into a smile as he remembers how Garak had looked with the moonlight spilling across his face late last night, the cool press of skin as Julian had curled around him. _Who needs puppy love?_

“Yes,” says Julian. “If it’s alright with Papa.”

Pelaa punches the air in triumph, a gesture she almost certainly learned from too many trips through Julian’s holonovels. “Thanks, Dad!” she says, leaning up to peck him on the cheek.

“Papa hasn’t said yes yet,” Julian reminds her, but she’s already running off. He shakes his head and turns to the replicator. “Raktajino,” he says. It’s early enough that the night’s chill still lingers in the air and clings to Julian’s skin, so he wraps his hands around the mug when it appears and breathes in the strong scent of coffee.

He sips at the drink, puttering around the kitchen and pulling out dishes for breakfast, when Garak comes in, carrying an obviously just woken-up Cardassian toddler.

Julian takes a long drink and then sets his mug down on the table. “Well look who’s awake,” he says, his voice immeasurably fond. He steps close to Garak, slipping one hand around his husband’s waist to make a little circle of the three of them.

In his frequently misguided twenties, Julian had seen marriage as the end of something. It was giving up, he’d thought; settling for dull, ordinary repetition. Life by rote. He’d told Miles once that marriage didn’t seem fair, having to spend all your time worrying about someone else.

Oh, how wrong he’d been.

He leans his head against Garak’s and reaches out a hand toward Lecar, who grabs it with pudgy fingers. Julian lets the grin spread wide across his face, still so inescapably charmed by it all, even after all these years.

 

They’re halfway through breakfast when Teburi finally makes her appearance, yawning and clutching a padd in one hand. Her hair is piled messily on top of her head, flyaways sticking up every which way like a halo -- she’d clearly fallen asleep with the pins still in it yet again. 

Most of Julian’s attention is focused on trying to convince Lecar that he does, in fact, like rice cereal and had eaten it only yesterday. “Good morning,” he says to Teburi. “How did you sleep?”

Teburi grunts an unintelligible response and Julian rolls his eyes. If Pelaa is the Platonic Ideal of a morning person, her younger sister is the exact opposite. Julian and Garak had tried enforcing a reasonable bedtime for a while when she was younger, but it had quickly become apparent that if they didn’t let her stay up reading, she would anyway. At least this way she manages to get enough sleep -- a sleep-deprived Teburi would inspire terror in the heart of even the most battle-hardened Klingon warrior.

Teburi wanders over to the replicator. “Raktajino,” she says.

“No,” Julian tells her without looking up. Lecar finally gets a fistful of cereal into his mouth and remembers he likes it, so Julian tries his luck with a piece of chara fruit next.

“Terran coffee?”

“Still no.”

“ _Da-ad_!”

“Teburi,” Julian answers mildly, raising his eyebrows at her.

She makes a face. “Fine. Tarkalean tea.”

“Better.”

Teburi takes her tea from the replicator and sits down at the table with a huff. She brings up the padd, but before she can turn it on, Garak gives her a stern look. “No reading at the table, Teburi. You know the rules.”

Teburi scowls and lets the padd hit the table with a clatter. “That is so unfair.”

Julian sometimes suspects his younger daughter is actually a stroppy teenager trapped in the body of a nine-year-old. “It would be unfair to deprive us of your attention and sunny disposition,” he teases.

“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, Daddy,” Teburi says dryly, and Garak snorts.

“I think Papa disagrees.”

“I think Papa is a little biased.”

Julian gives Garak a fond look. “That may be.”

Garak narrows his eyes, gesturing with a fork. “I’ll have you know I’m perfectly capable of objectivity, Doctor.”

“Capable of? Maybe. In practice? I’m not convinced.”

“In that case, I’ll just have to--”

“ _Guys_ ,” Pelaa cuts in, putting both hands flat on the table for emphasis. “Could you flirt later? We’re on a schedule here.”

Garak cracks a smile and Julian laughs, affection blooming warm like sunlight in his chest. “There’s always time for flirting.”

Pelaa rolls her eyes and Teburi looks up from where she’d been stealthily reading while her parents are distracted. “What schedule?” she asks. “Because there’s a new issue of the Hoyden Journal of Medicine out and I was planning to--”

“Bring it with you,” Pelaa says. “We’re going into town. And we’re already later than I wanted, so….” She makes a little rolling ‘get a move on’ gesture with one hand.

Teburi narrows her eyes at her sister. “Is this so you can spend time with your girlfriend?”

“She’s not my girlfriend!” Belatedly, Pelaa seems to realize she’s refuted the wrong point. “I mean no, it’s not; it’s a family bonding experience.”

Teburi gives that the skeptical look it deserves. “And the reason we can’t bond at home is…?”

“Because you can’t spend the whole summer cooped up inside, Teburi,” Pelaa says, more confidently now that she’s gotten the conversation back on track. Julian suspects she’s pre-written this part as well, right down to the expansive hand gestures. “You have to _experience_ the _world_. Meet people! There’s more to life than medical journals.”

Teburi gives her a blank look. She turns to Garak. “Can I stay home?”

“No, you cannot stay home,” Garak says. Teburi starts to protest, but he cuts her off. “You _can_ bring the padd. _One_ padd.”

“But--” Garak raises his eye ridges at her, and she settles. “Fine. I’ll bring the new Hoyden.”

“Fine,” Garak says. “Now please get something to eat.”

“Alright, alright.” Teburi pushes up from the table and heads back to the replicator for some breakfast. Lecar is happily crunching on both the cereal and the chara fruit, so Julian snags Teburi’s padd and clicks it on. He hadn’t even known Hoyden was out this week. Just once, he’d like the chance to read his own journals before Teburi steals them.

“No reading at the table means you too, my dear,” Garak says, plucking the padd out of Julian’s fingers and setting it aside. “You can have it back after breakfast.”

“Hey, I was reading that!” Teburi says, coming back with her food and sitting down.

“I’m fairly certain you weren’t, considering I just said we have a rule against reading at the table.”

“I meant before that?”

“Then you can have it back after.”

That seems to mollify Teburi, though at this rate it will be days at least before Julian can get his hands on it. There’s about thirty seconds of peaceful quiet as everyone eats, and then Lecar starts wiggling in the way that indicates he wants to get up immediately.

Julian eyes his half-finished raktajino longingly for a moment, then brushes the crumbs off of Lecar’s face and picks him up out of the high chair to get him dressed for the day.

Pelaa had asked him once why Lecar didn’t talk. Early Cardassian milestones typically followed a similar trajectory to the human equivalents, so at nearly three, Lecar should have been using short sentences at the very least.

“Because you talk enough for the both of you,” Julian had teased, ruffling her hair. “He’ll talk when he’s ready.”

Julian’s not worried -- they’ve all gotten pretty good as deciphering the various gestures and sounds Lecar uses to communicate. Julian’s parents’ reaction to his own delayed speech had been to fundamentally rewrite him as a person, but he’s determined to love Lecar exactly as he is and exactly how he will be. Julian’s parents hadn’t given Jules a chance. He won’t make the same mistakes with Lecar.

 

As expected, it takes Garak nearly thirty minutes to untangle the mess of Teburi’s hair. Pelaa hovers nearby the entire time, tapping her foot impatiently. Teburi just ignores her, animatedly lecturing Garak about an article she’d read last night in the Andorian Journal of Astrophysics.

“Is that so?” Garak says whenever she pauses to draw breath (which isn’t often). “How fascinating.” It’s entirely sincere, despite that fact that he probably understands very little of what she’s talking about.

Eventually, Garak and Julian manage to get all three children dressed and out the door. And then promptly back inside when Lecar, nestled in the sling on Garak’s back, goes wide-eyed and starts flapping his hands because they’d left his Federation Constellation-class toy up in his bedroom.

“Here,” Julian says, handing his bag over to Garak. “Hold this; I’ll go get it.” He gives Lecar’s arm a little comforting squeeze and then takes the stairs two at a time, grabs the little ship, and ushers everyone back out the door. He takes his bag back from Garak and hands the toy over to Lecar, who cradles it against his chest, humming softly to himself.

The local transport hub is crowded, typical for the day and the hour. “If we’d left _earlier_ ,” Pelaa says, crossing her arms and frowning, “the line would be a lot shorter.”

“Pelaa,” Garak says, his voice a warning. He pairs it with a significant glance, and Pelaa’s face smooths from irritation to contrition. She fidgets with the hem of her shirt the whole time they’re waiting, but she doesn’t complain again.

It’s summer on Cardassia, which is warm even by Cardassian standards, but the market is only a few blocks down from the city transport hub, so they walk. The girls are both dressed in sleeveless tunics and they turn their faces up towards the sun. Cardassian men’s fashion tends to be a little more modest, as typified by Garak’s lightweight long sleeved shirt and trousers, but Julian is already the only alien around for kilometers. His scandalous form of dress, exposed collarbones and bare arms, can hardly add more fuel to the gossip fires.

The summer is sticky and too bright, and on the really hot days, he has to stay inside or risk heat stroke, but Julian has more or less adjusted to the heat. He hasn’t felt cold in about ten years. He doesn’t miss it most days, but sometimes when his hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat and the air is like hot soup, he fantasizes about snow and breath that hangs in the air.

Fortunately, the weather is fairly mild today. They wind through the aisles of open-air booths, pausing here and there to buy fresh vegetables or so Garak can examine a bolt of Tellurian cotton. Julian walks with his arm threaded through Garak’s, mirroring the Cardassian couples that bustle through the market, doing their weekly shopping. The girls walk ahead, Pelaa anxiously scanning the crowd for Tiral and Teburi with her nose to her padd, managing to avoid running into anyone through a combination of years of practice and (Julian suspects) telepathy.

They’re coming to the end of a row when Teburi suddenly stops dead and whirls around, gesturing at Julian with her padd. “Dad, Dad, Dad,” she says, her eyes bright and excited even as people step around her, frowning disapprovingly. “Have you read about this new trial drug for Jenniya Syndrome?”

Julian disentangles himself from Garak so he can take Teburi by the upper arms, gently turn her around, and usher her forward again. “Is it in the new Hoyden?”

“Yes....”

“The one that came out today?”

“Yeah….”

“The one you haven’t let out of your sight all morning?”

Teburi frowns. “So no.”

“No, darling,” Julian says. “I haven’t read about it yet.” He slings an arm around her to pull her close, even despite the heat. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

The science is, of course, fascinating, and Julian makes a note to read the study whenever he finally manages to wrest the journal away from his younger daughter. But even better than what sounds like a very promising clinical trial is the way Teburi’s whole face lights up when she talks, managing complex chemical compounds with nary a pause. She’ll likely be on some other scientific discipline tomorrow, something even Julian barely understands, but he always treasures the days when her focus is medicine.

After a while, Lecar starts to get restless and wiggly, so they pick up lunch from one of the stands and make their way to the grassy park just off the market. The lawn is full of families with picnics, couples strolling arm-in-arm, people stretched out and sunbathing. They find a spot in the shade of a gnarled old Shella tree, and Julian pulls Lecar out of the sling and sets him down. He toddles around, chewing on one fist and twirling his starship in the air.

“He wasn’t too heavy, was he?” Julian asks Garak, settling onto the ground beside him. He glances aside to make sure the girls are distracted by their food and pitches his voice low. “I could rub your shoulders for you.”

Garak clicks his tongue, but there’s heat in his gaze. “Ten years on Cardassia, Doctor, and you still aren’t properly socialized.”

Julian bumps his shoulder against Garak’s. “And whose fault is that?”

“I do encourage you, don’t I?”

Before Julian can respond, Teburi looks up from the padd in her lap and says, “Dad. You are not going to believe what they’re doing with microsurgery on Kelvas Prime.” She points her Zabu kabob at him. “And we’re not at a table, so don’t say anything.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Julian says, his voice a little helpless. The letter of the law is going to be the death of him one day. “Tell me about Kelvas.”

She does, chattering happily between bites of her kabob. Beside him, Garak coaxes Lecar into eating little bits of grilled vegetables and meat. Julian had brought some more fruit just in case, but Lecar dutifully accepts a bite of food every time his little circle brings him close enough for Garak to pop a piece in his mouth.

“You’re awfully quiet, Pelaa,” Julian says once Teburi has gone back to her padd. “Everything alright?”

Pelaa is staring intently across the park, her fork frozen halfway to her mouth. She jerks suddenly at Julian’s question and almost drops it. “Huh?” she says, turning her face reluctantly back to Julian.

Julian follows the line of her previous gaze to see another family on the other side of the park: a tall, muscular woman holding hands with a shorter woman, a boy a little older than Teburi, and a girl about Pelaa’s age.

“You know, you could go talk to her,” Julian says, nodding towards Tiral.

Pelaa gives him a scandalized look and forgets she’s pretending this outing was proposed for altruistic reasons. “I can’t do that! What would I say?”

“‘Hello’ is usually a good place to start.”

“And after that?” Pelaa demands.

“You could always imply you’re a spy?” Pelaa glares at him and he laughs. “Hey, that’s what worked for your father.”

“Dad, this is serious.”

“Of course, darling,” Julian says, rearranging himself into a more sober expression and straightening up a little. Pelaa watches him expectantly, hoping for some helpful advice, but unfortunately, he has none to give. It’s a minor miracle he’d ended up married to Garak at all considering he’d spent the first seven years of their relationship being utterly obtuse about the whole thing.

Garak swings out an arm to catch Lecar around the waist when he starts to wander too far off. “You could engineer a situation of some danger so she’s forced to come to your aid,” he suggests mildly.

Julian and Pelaa turn to stare at him with identical horrified expressions.

“Do me a favor,” Julian says to Pelaa. “Never ask Papa for dating advice.” She nods, her eyes wide and serious.

“It _would_ be the most expedient approach,” Garak says matter-of-factly, without even the good grace to sounds defensive. “And it would save you the trouble of coming up with a topic of conversation.”

“Why,” Julian deadpans. “Why did I marry you.”

“Why indeed,” says Garak, but when he meets Julian’s gaze, there’s a twinkle of mirth in his eyes.

Julian swats at Garak’s shoulder, and Garak laughs. Teburi continues ignoring their antics as usual, and Pelaa wrinkles up her nose. The expression suddenly drops off her face in favor of frozen, petrified shock when Tiral apparently finally spots her and waves.

“What do I do?” Pelaa hisses to Julian as she gives an awkward wave back.

“Oh my god,” Teburi interrupts without looking up from her padd. “Just tell her you like her. This ridiculous insistence on subtlety and obfuscation is getting you nowhere.”

Pelaa’s jaw actually drops. “That’s -- I can’t -- _That’s not how it works!_ ”

Teburi rolls her eyes. “Suit yourself.”

“To be fair,” Julian puts in, “it’s not such a terrible idea.”

Pelaa stares at him. “ _Papa_ ,” she whines to Garak, pleading for a rational Cardassian answer.

Garak feeds another bite of vegetable to Lecar. “Do let me know if I should feign a heart attack,” he says.

Julian narrows his eyes. “I can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”

“My dear Doctor,” Garak says, giving him an enigmatic smile. “I never kid.”

It takes another few minutes of convincing, but eventually, Pelaa gets up to go talk to Tiral. They’re just a bit too far away to overhear, even with Julian’s genetically improved hearing, but he can see the tension slowly draining out of Pelaa’s shoulders.

Julian slips his arm around Garak’s back and leans into him. “Do you think we should be concerned?” he says. “About our thirteen-year-old daughter dating, I mean.”

“Pelaa is a smart, capable girl,” Garak says. “She’ll be fine. And if anyone should hurt her…” He trails off, the edge of the words sharp like a scalpel wound that doesn’t hurt until you see the blood.

Julian is sure Garak has dossiers on everyone their children have ever spoken to -- weaknesses and secrets and skeletons ready to drag out at a moment’s notice if anyone should lay a hand on them or cause them even a second of unhappiness. There had been a time when nothing, save perhaps the Cardassian State herself, could inspire such loyalty, but the years had washed over Garak like the tide, smoothing and polishing all the rough edges.

An ocean of years stretches out before Julian now, the horizon in the distance, and he can’t believe he was once so worried about turning _thirty_.

“Dad,” says Teburi as Lecar decides he’d had enough wandering and plants himself in Garak’s lap. “You’ve got to read this article about Ba’ltmasor Syndrome.”

“I will,” Julian promises. “As soon as you’re finished.”

A breeze sweeps through the park, stirring the grass and the hair at the back of Julian’s neck. In the distance, Pelaa and Tiral are arguing heatedly with each other, though Pelaa can’t quite keep the grin off of her face.

Julian lets out a slow, contented breath. In a little while, he and Garak will gather up their children and herd them home again, Teburi and Pelaa chattering all the way. Later, when the sun sets and the heat of the day fades into cool evening, Julian will curl up beside Garak in the bed they share, every inch of grey skin as familiar as his own.

Tomorrow may be hectic and too hot; they may quarrel about trivial things and fall back on bad habits. Whatever will come will come, and Julian will meet it like a wave upon the shore, again and again and again.


End file.
